Getty Mark Davis shaking hands with Josh McDaniels.
It’s safe to say that Josh Mcdaniels’ tenure with the Las Vegas Raiders hasn’t gotten off to a good start. The team is 2-5 and lost 24-0 to the New Orleans Saints, which is the first shutout loss for the franchise since 2014. McDaniels was supposed to take a team that made the playoffs last season and turn them into Super Bowl contenders. Instead, they look like NFL bottom feeders.
Many fans are already calling for the Raiders to fire McDaniels and rip off the bandaid before things get too ugly. Owner Mark Davis is the only one to have the power to make that call and had a lengthy closed-door meeting with the coach following the loss to the Saints, per ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez. It’s never a good sign when the owner is having long meetings with coaches directly after a loss.
Despite the rough start, Davis isn’t giving up on McDaniels yet. In fact, he came out and made it clear that he has no intention of firing the coach anytime soon.
“Josh McDaniels Is Our Head Coach And Will Be For Years To Come,” Davis said, per Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Just to clear anything up after some “reports” surfaced today. This is from @Raiders owner Mark Davis: “Josh McDaniels Is Our Head Coach And Will Be For Years To Come.”
Raiders Will at Least Give McDaniels a Full Season
As much as the fans might like to see the Raiders make a change at head coach, it’s unrealistic to expect the team to fire him right now. The team went through an extensive coaching search in the offseason and determined that McDaniels was the right choice. Nothing in Davis’ background proves that he can make the correct coaching hire but he at least needs to stand by his decision.
Firing McDaniels now isn’t going to make the Raiders better. The coaching staff is filled with coaches who are close to him. General manager Dave Ziegler has known the coach for decades and the two went to college together. Firing him only opens up a whole litany of issues right now. Davis will give him at least the rest of the season and will likely give him all of next year, too.
McDaniels Issues Apology to Raider Nation
McDaniels has six Super Bowl rings to his name so there’s no doubt he’s not thrilled with how his team played on Sunday. The Raiders have too much talent to get shut out by one of the league’s worst-scoring defenses. McDaniels took responsibility for the horrific performance.
“Obviously that wasn’t good enough in any way, shape or form,” McDaniels said after the loss to the Saints. “And that’s my responsibility, so I have to do a much better job of getting ourselves ready to go here. We’re better than that, and I apologize to Raider Nation for that performance and, again, I own that. That’s my responsibility, so we have to do much better, obviously, in every phase of the game to be able to compete with a team like that who’s well coached, has good players, they obviously came ready to play and did a much better job than we did. So it starts with me, and we’re going to work hard. We’re going to fix it.”
It’s good that he’s owning up to the loss but that won’t mean much to the Raiders fan base if the team doesn’t start winning games again.